The Power of the Cyber Word

Todd Olson

Necessary and Difficult Conversations • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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It has been said that everything rises and falls on leadership. Leadership occurs at every level of any organizational system. You don't have to be the CEO or part of the management team to make a difference.

Over the last decade, we have seen the exponential growth of social media. According to the We Are Social report, 3.484 billion people actively use social media - that is 45% of the world population. This social media boom has given rise to the Social Media Influencer.

Influencers leverage their knowledge and expertise to shape and mold culture. They build credibility and trust through regular posts and blogs that impact our thoughts, feelings, and responses. Name brands love influencers because they create trends and fads that bolster sales.

Werner Geyser, “What is an Influencer?” Influencer Marketing Hub (4-4-22); Staff, “9 of the Biggest Social Media Influencers on Instagram,” Digital Marketing Institute (9-19-21)

There is an old African proverb that says, “He who thinks he leads and has no one following is only taking a walk.” The Great Commission calls us to be influencers in the world. Who is going with you on your journey?

I’d think we would all agree with this. However, have we all thought about how we influence not just in our daily face to face interactions with people, but also through how we conduct ourselves online and in social media? Social media is a combination of words and images and videos. They are trying to convey something, often something that isn’t quite true. Craig Detweiler writes in his work, “Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age:”

After surveying an incredibly diverse cross section of college students across America, Donna Freitas found “the most pressing social media issues students face: the importance of appearing happy”—and not just happy, students told her, but “blissful, enraptured, even inspiring.” Almost 75 percent of students surveyed agreed that “I try always to appear positive/happy with anything attached to my real name.”

Freitas calls this vexing dilemma “the happiness effect.” Breanna has lost her father, tours a death camp, and yet, due to social expectations, has almost no option other than to smile (and include a happy face emoji).

In grief, teens put on a brave face. In disappointment, adolescents act inspired. In crisis, the next generation appears blissful. Freitas summarizes the dangers of such dissonance: “In our attempts to appear happy, to distract ourselves from our deeper, sometimes darker thoughts, we experience the opposite effect. In trying to always appear happy, we rob ourselves of joy.”

Craig Detweiler, Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age, Baker Publishing Group, 2018, p.19.

Turn with me this morning to:

James 3:1–12 NIV

1 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. 3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. 7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

You might be asking yourself, didn’t we have a sermon on this passage earlier this year? Yes, we did. However, this morning we are going to approach this from a slightly different angle. I typically hear this passage preached regarding the tongue and what it is that we verbally say. But what about our cyber words - those words we don’t necessarily say with our tongues but type with our fingers. Here is a passage from Alexandra Kuykendall’s work, Loving My Actual Neighbor:

Whether young or old, Americans are feeling more isolated. According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, about half of Americans have weekly interactions with their neighbors, which means half of us don’t. A survey by AARP found about one-third of respondents over the age of forty-five are lonely. And according to the American Psychological Association, loneliness and social isolation have similar effects on health as obesity and can lead to premature death.

No surprise, social media doesn’t help the feelings of isolation. We can have serious fear of missing out (FOMO) when it seems we aren’t invited to the places everyone else is (or even have the same number of likes or comments as someone else). The opposite is also true. When we replace a virtual meet-up with a real one, we can decrease our actual isolation.

Alexandra Kuykendall, Loving My Actual Neighbor, Baker Publishing Group, 2019, p. 15

This is a passage from Jay Y. Kim’s Analog Church:

As the speed and choices of the digital age send us hurling toward impatience and shallowness, they culminate in its most damaging consequence: isolation. Social media in particular lures us in under the guise of connection, but beneath this mask is the reality that social media, and digital spaces as a whole, are for the most part lonely places.

This is because social media is fueled by voyeurism—that broken inclination within each of us to peek behind the curtain of other people’s lives. Rather than connecting us, the voyeuristic nature of social media actually detaches and distances us from one another, as we find ourselves running aimlessly on the treadmill of comparison and contempt.

We feel like we can see one another’s lives, but none of us ever feel truly seen. Digital connections often act as poor disguises for our real-life isolation. Sherry Turkle says it this way: “Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone.”

As we dig in this morning, I want to talk about the basic components of social media a bit - words and images. In “Charitable Discourse Volume 2,” Dr. Timothy Green invites us to think about words maybe a bit differently than we do typically, in the context of the Scriptures. IN particular, let’s look to the book that contains the largest collection of wisdom passages in all of Scripture - Proverbs. The core of this book calls us to follow in the path of wisdom, which says quite a bit about our words - and I think that these apply to our spoken as well as social media written words.

Let’s reflect on a few of these this morning:

Proverbs 12:18 NIV

18 The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Proverbs 16:28 NIV

28 A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.

Proverbs 17:27–28 NIV

27 The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. 28 Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.

Proverbs 18:21 NIV

21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Proverbs 20:19 NIV

19 A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.

Proverbs 21:23 NIV

23 Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity.

Proverbs 26:18–19 NIV

18 Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death 19 is one who deceives their neighbor and says, “I was only joking!”

Proverbs 26:20 NIV

20 Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down.

Proverbs 29:20 NIV

20 Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for them.

There is much wisdom in these verses around our words. Dr. Green writes, “Wisdom’s instruction on words is not provided as a set of ironclad legalistic regulations, heaven-or-hell moralisms, or a litmus test for good people versus evil people. Rather, Wisdom understand that one’s use of words is an indication of wise living vs. foolish living, maturity or immaturity, sensibility or insensibility, prudence gained from experience or childishness that needs to grow up. A person’s use of the power inherent within words and images is both determined by and is an indication of that person’s wisdom or folly.”

Our words have meaning and consequence whether spoken or written. In fact, I would go so far as to say that our written words may have more consequence as they are far easier to be misinterpreted. It is much harder to convey our meaning and intent in a short post on social media. It is far easier to create conflict and division on social media. in fact, I have become convinced that civil discourse is almost impossible on social media. What was meant to connect and bring us together seems to only further divide.

If we go back to our passage in James 3, we see much about the tongue being a fire - a world of evil among the parts of the body. Let’s look at verse 9:

James 3:9 NIV

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.

I would argue that it is often easier to curse people out or say things we wouldn’t say to someone’s face on social media. We can just type it and that is it. We don’t have to deal with the immediate reaction or if we do, it often turns into a cyber argument with both sides being hurt in the end. We cannot claim to be a Christian and act/say things on social media that do not line up with Jesus Christ!

Friends, there are two things I want us to consider this morning:

First, over the last two years, I’ve observed more divisive conversation on social media than I care to admit. I’ve watched people I know argue and alienate each other over how the pandemic was handled and the 2020 political cycle. I’ve watched churches fall apart. I’ve watched colleagues leave the ministry because it was just too much. I’ve watched families be torn apart over things posted on social media. Being a leader in the church over the last couple years has been a challenge that most do not realize.

Second, there is so much information that is shared that is frankly not true or kind or helpful. We have people today who have no idea how to check and see if something is true. If it fits their narrative, they share it or post it. Pastor Cindy can tell you working in the library that there are way too many people out there who have no idea to determine if something is from a credible source. This is how so much misinformation and conspiracy theories spread. There are too many people out there who believe everything they see on social media.

So what do we, as followers of Jesus do about this?

First - stay rooted in the Word of God. If we are in the Word first and foremost, we will not get lead astray nearly as easily as we could otherwise. We must have a passion for the Word of God friends. We must check ourselves and what we see/hear versus Scripture and the example of Jesus regularly.

Second - think before you speak or in this case post online. Let’s jump back to:

James 3:10 NIV

10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.

It is amazing how quickly information travels on social media. There are simple posts that have gone viral in a matter of hours - sometimes not even true. The influence we can have today can be far greater than it ever has been in the past. Let’s stay in tune with Jesus and be good examples and character witnesses for Jesus Christ and remember that our witness depends on being Christlike in all circumstances as we continue to become more like Christ. That isn’t to say we won’t screw up and make mistakes, we likely will. However, it is much harder to move past something if it is online.

Pinterest images display perfectly planned and executed birthday parties, not three-year-old’s crying because their turn with the bat didn’t break the pinata.

Instagram posts feature shots of happy parents holding swaddled newborns, not the agony of hours of labor and delivery. Facebook posts show runners smiling at the finish line of 5Ks and half-marathons, not grimacing as they bandage their blistered feet.

And there’s even more to those photos. Not only does the picture of the triumphant runner at the finish line not show the runner’s blistered feet, it doesn’t hint at what might be behind the running. Maybe the runner really is always as cheerful as he looks in the Facebook photo; perhaps running is simply one element of a happy healthy life. But maybe the runner struggles with eating too much and runs to try to be thin.

Perhaps the runner is unhappy with her job or her relationships and runs to put them out of her mind. Or there could be something much deeper at work: maybe the runner was once abused or threatened by a loved one and now tries to run away from frightening memories. Who knows? While a social media post may not be the place to share those stories, the truth is every photo has a backstory of some kind.

Third - don’t get caught up in the world of ruling our virtual worlds. We can portray ourselves to be anything - it happens all the time. There are people being hacked all the time. There are people pretending to be someone they are not all the time. There are people trying to make themselves look like something they are not all the time. There are people trying to portray an image of beauty that may not be true all the time. Friends, filters are real and they can mask so many things.

As we close this morning, let’s look at the last passage of James chapter 3, as I believe there is something for us to consider this morning:

James 3:13–18 NIV

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. 17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

Wisdom is something that we should be asking God for. Let’s seek to be wise people, understanding of others, willing to listen, and be people who, as we see in verse 17, are “pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere.

My challenge to each of us is this. Let’s be prayerfully discerning, reflecting, honest, and gracious in our conversations with other people, whether in person or virtual. Let’s focus on building each other up when there are so many out there who focus on tearing others down over an idea or philosophy they disagree with. Let’s be people who engage in civil discourse with each other and with those we come in contact with. Let’s be discerning in what we post on social media by asking ourselves if what we are about to post is helpful, kind, and most importantly, honoring to God.